


Bleeding's No Excuse

by Kadigan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Badass Hux, Competency, Crisis, Dammit fandom why so inspiring?, Gen, Injured Hux, Injury, Inspired By Tumblr, because "i will NOT collapse until the crisis ends" trope is best trope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-01 15:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6526579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kadigan/pseuds/Kadigan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux has just stalked through the doors of Hangar Six Control when Dameron's stolen fighter puts a turbolaser blast through its viewports.</p><p>This does not stop him for long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bite-size canon-AU, written in one night and fueled by far too much coffee. Prompt: ["Imagine Hux being caught in the explosion when Finn and Poe escape."](http://kadigan2.tumblr.com/post/142623368737/permian-tropos)

Later --  _much_ later -- Hux would learn that the lieutenant who’d karked up Twelfth Battalion’s pilot duty roster, so badly that only the General’s personal attention could keep the affected ‘troopers from on-the-spot mutiny, had been demoted and reassigned to sanitation duty on the most brutally unpleasant planet Phasma could find. The news would earn its bearer a thin, grim sliver of a smile. After all, if not for Lieutenant Siun’s frankly inexcusable incompetence, Hux would have been on the bridge when Dameron and the traitor escaped. He would never have needed to visit Hangar Six Control at all.

He certainly wouldn’t have stalked through its doors just as the stolen fighter put a turbolaser volley through the viewports.

The blast hit him like a cargo hauler, lifted him off his feet, blew out his senses in searing white and chemical-fire stench. His body smashed against hot durasteel -- a sickening crack -- the roar of the explosion fading into a high ringing whine.

 _High-energy fire_ , he thought in a daze. Some detached part of his brain rattled off the associated emergency protocols. _Seal affected sectors, monitor automated fire-suppression systems, alert medics. Unlikely to breach hangar-bay hull plating. Check environmentals regardless._

None of which could effectively be accomplished from inside the affected sectors, of course.

His senses were starting to return, shapes coalescing from the jitter of afterimages and sounds from the whine in his ears. He lay crumpled at the base of the door into Six Control, surrounded by chaos. The blast had blown out Control’s viewports, ripped consoles from their moorings, scattered officers like eightpins. Blast shadows drew macabre, inverted silhouettes on the charred bulkhead. Shards of twisted, blackened plastic and metal littered everything. Bodies, whole and shredded. Screams. Smoke. Something on his face, wet.

Hux stood -- tried to stand. Failed, his right leg giving out with a strange, bright shock to dump him back on the decking. Tried to push up -- right arm jerked, moved _wrong_ , something grinding deep and fiery in his back and shoulder. Broken. He shouldn’t be able to move the arm at all… well, if shock and adrenaline were eager to hold back the worst of the pain, they were more than welcome. _He_ still had work to do.

“Sir!”

Horrified face looming over him -- Hux twitched with the effort of holding back a reflexive punch. Instead, he planted his good left hand and shoved his torso upright, sucking in a breath between his teeth when his whole right side creaked with the effort. “Lieutenant,” he rasped. “Report.”

Lieutenant Teipka crouched next to him, eyes wide, hands fluttering over his shoulders as if to press him back down. “Sir, the medics are --”

“ _Sit-rep_ , Teipka!”

The lieutenant’s mouth snapped shut. “Captain Ydrid’s wounded, sir, but alive and giving orders. Damcon teams are thirty seconds out --”

“And what _happened?”_

“Rogue TIE, sir! Tried to launch without dropping tether, so they shot up the hangar instead. _That_ set them loose. We’ve lost fuel containment --”

“Which I trust Ydrid can handle.” Six Control’s senior officer had survived, and was even intact enough to take command of the local situation, which freed Hux to make for the bridge and shoot the damned rogue down. He gripped Teipka’s shoulder and jerked his chin upwards. “Stand.”

She obeyed, pulling him to his feet. His whole torso screamed at him, but his leg held this time -- only barely, with that same bright shock that he recognized now as the yelp of a crushed nerve, but it would get him to the bridge. It had to. He settled his weight on Teipka’s shoulders, let her wrap an arm over his back -- felt bone grate under the pressure – and started limping upward as fast as he could.

By the time they reached the bridge, the adrenaline was fading, and true shock had begun to set in. Gray blotches nibbled at the edges of Hux’s vision; sweat beaded at his temples. Each step lanced another white-hot bolt down his leg. Every breath seared across his ribs, through his chest, up under his shoulderblade. Still he limped out before his officers, dismissing Teipka to lower himself into the command chair by one shaking arm. “Report,” he barked.

To the bridge crew’s credit, no one faltered more than briefly at the scorched and bloodied specter of their General. The news was grim, though: the pilot had escaped, with treasonous help, and stolen a Special Forces TIE. Hangar Six was badly damaged. The rogue fighter was making for Jakku, trading fire with  _Finalizer’s_ cannons --

Mitaka interrupted. “They’ve taken out our turbolasers.”

“Use the ventral cannons.” Hux watched, intent, as the lieutenant brought them online. He needed the distraction more every second.

“General Hux,” boomed a deep, grating, _utterly_ unwelcome voice. “You should be in Medical.”

Dealing with Kylo Ren was perhaps the least productive possible use of Hux’s waning strength. He ground his teeth and ignored the menace. “Mitaka?”

“Ventral cannons hot.”

_“Fire.”_

From such a distance, the stolen TIE’s death was just a bright flicker among the sparks already dancing in Hux’s vision. He released a slow breath, pointedly ignoring the black shape that loomed close behind him. “Report.”

“They’re hit, sir,” a tech reported. Ligssen, was it? -- Hux’s head spun. He couldn’t be sure of her name.

No matter. “Destroyed?” he gritted out.

“Disabled only, it would appear.” The tech swallowed. “He’s definitely going down, though, sir. No pilot would willingly take that landing vector. They’re projected to crash somewhere in the Goazon Badlands.”

Going back for the droid. It was the only reason that made sense. Not that they’d likely survive the crash. “Send a squad to the crash site. Sweep the wreckage and all surroundings. I won’t accept that they’re dead without tangible biological tra--”

He shifted minutely and his entire right leg seized, locked into spasm from hip to toes. He bit back a cry, back bowing involuntarily over the pain, but dragged his head back up. _“Traces,”_ he grated. Just another breath. Another. The situation was stable. He could… he would, soon, regardless. “And get me a medic.”

“Already done, sir.” Mitaka met his eyes, but quickly glanced away. “They’re on their way.”

Hux shut his eyes. “Orovax, you have the conn. Mitaka, Unamo, compile the reports going forward for my post-op briefing.” He swallowed a cough, not wanting to think about how it would feel in his present state. “And tell the medics to have me conscious as quickly as possible, or I’ll see someone spaced.”

The chorus of “yessir” faded under the ringing in his ears, and he finally let himself sink backwards into darkness.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The life-signs monitor was the first sign anyone in Medical had that the General was waking. His heart rate and blood pressure rose slowly, steadily, brainwaves slipping back from deep sedation through REM sleep and layer by layer up to consciousness. That was good; that was perfectly normal. When the heart monitor spiked again, though, right at the far edge of shallow sleep… well, the senior medic was in the ‘fresher, and the orderlies didn’t know their CO as well as she did. They hadn’t learned the tricks to bring him up easily.

So, as it was, the _second_ sign that the General was waking was the wordless, rumbling growl from the gurney.

\---

Hux woke disoriented.

A jolt of adrenaline blasted away the last veils of sleep and his eyes snapped open. _White_ \-- white light, blinding, a gray room. Lying on his side. Stiff fabric, plast against his skin. Where -- he shoved himself upright -- _pain,_ bone grinding, hands burning, leg seizing. His heart thundered in his ears.

A flurry of movement around him -- white, gray, red. High-pitched beeping. Agitated voices, droid and human -- hands _on him_ \-- he snarled, tried to twist free--

“General Hux! Sir! You’re safe, you’re on the _Finalizer_ \-- “

_Oh._ He stilled, peering through the haze -- _must be drugged,_ he realized as the faces came into focus. These were allies. His medics. Infirmary. No immediate danger, then. 

That fact let his pulse start to settle, a half-perceived growl trailing away from the back of his throat. The nurses laid hands on him again; this time he let them take his weight and ease him back down. He blinked to clear sleep-gummed eyes, and when they came back open, his senior surgeon stood beside his bed. 

“Vellis,” he said, or tried to. Dr. Vellis nodded down at him.

“Welcome back, General.” She offered him a sip of water, which he accepted. It was a balm on his throat and a welcome distraction; large parts of his body had _not_ appreciated his thrashing. Vellis’ report was a better one. He’d only been unconscious for two hours, but the medics had made good use of the time: he’d been thoroughly triaged, apparently, and the most urgent matters already treated.

“It must have been quite an explosion. We usually see this kind of blunt trauma in fighter crashes,” Vellis mused, when she finally got around to listing his injuries. “Your right scapula, ilium, and fourth through sixth ribs are all fractured; the soft tissue around them is crushed or deeply bruised, and there’s damage to several branches of your femoral nerve. The worst of it was a pulmonary contusion, partly from the shock wave and partly the actual impact, but it was a slow bleed and has responded well to treatment. The shrapnel cuts are mostly healed, but the deepest few may scar, so if you’d like us to --”

“Not important,” he rasped. “How long until I’m up again?”

Dr. Vellis arched an eyebrow. “That depends, sir. What are you willing to put yourself through?”

\---

Bacta immersion would have been easy and reliable -- painless, even -- but Hux could not afford to waste days in tank-dreams, not with a traitor to excise and a prisoner to recapture. Instead he opted for the quicker, more invasive treatments. Complete recovery would take longer, but they could patch him together for light duty in a day or two, barring complications.

The first complication stomped into the room not four hours later, robes billowing melodramatically. Behind him, an orderly yelped in dismay: “Lord Ren, please! You can’t be in here!”

Above Hux, Dr. Vellis went very still, cursing under her breath. Fabric billowed in the corner of his eye as Ren approached them.

“General,” Ren rumbled. “You must authorize a mission.”

Hux rolled his eyes up to meet the black pillar towering over him. “Can it wait?” he drawled incredulously.

“No.” Ren loomed. “The Supreme Leader’s command --"

“Then ask Orovax.” A low shiver ran over Hux’s skin, and he gathered himself for a contemptuous jab. “I’m a little bit busy at the moment, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

From the way Ren halted, he actually hadn’t. The helmet’s gaze swept over Hux, laid out prone and shirtless on the waist-high table, his eyes hazed with benzodi and his datapad propped up before him; over the antiseptic field and sterile drapes across his upper back, the IV lines and monitor patches, the nerve-block array hugging the base of his skull; over the Emdee droid at his side, bonemer extruder and pressors aimed precisely inward; over the surgeon practically quivering with affront, vibroscalpel and bacta spray poised above her patient... From that angle, Hux mused, Ren could probably see right into the incision, where they’d pulled back the half-crushed wreck of his trapezius and infraspinatus muscles to expose the broken pieces of his shoulder blade. Did Ren feel differently about human innards in medical contexts than in battle?

“My congratulations,” Hux said at last, bone-dry. “I’ve never before known anyone able to break in on the middle of surgery without even _noticing._ Kindly leave, so they can get on with it.”

“Oh, don’t let me delay you,” Ren shot back.

With the nerve blocks in place and the muscle relaxants in his blood, Hux couldn’t move very much, but glaring was still manageable. “Get _out,_ Ren. I’ll send for you when they’ve closed up.” The man didn’t budge. For another long moment they stared each other down; then Hux sniffed irritably and tipped a shaking index finger in the surgeon’s direction. “Dr. Vellis, please continue.”

Vellis startled. “You can’t possibly --?!”

“Don’t worry, Doctor.” Ren didn’t budge. “I won’t be in your way.”

She hesitated for another moment, taking a deep breath. “If you’re sure, General. Emdee-2EA, the extruder?”

As doctor and droid started back in on reassembling the bone, Hux looked back up at Ren. “Well?”

The man just stared. The fine hairs on Hux’s nape prickled; either Vellis was adjusting the block array, or he was being very thoroughly studied from under that mask. “Do you usually read reports while you're under the knife?”

“I don’t make a habit of needing surgery, so no.” Vellis had been fine with his request for strictly local anesthesia, but she’d initially refused to leave the nerve blocks off his left side so he could get _some_ work done. Only the way his blood pressure spiked at the prospect of completely losing another five hours had convinced her, and even then she’d forbidden live briefings: written reports only. “Then again, I’m also not usually accosted halfway through.”

“You could have called security. You usually do, when I’m not welcome.”

“Maybe I just didn’t want the duty squads bumbling around me in this state.” If he was honest, it had more to do with not wanting Ren’s lightsaber anywhere around him in his current state. The time to risk antagonizing Ren was certainly not while lying cut open before him, drugged sluggish and naked to the very literal _bone._ “Get to the point, Ren -- what do you want?”

“I am going down to Jakku, to find the droid.”

Oh, _hells._ “No, you are not. My men have already --”

“Your men have no idea --”

“-- found it, and will return with it in --” he checked the wall chron -- “less than an hour.”

“And if they fail to return it?”

“They won’t.”

_“If they do.”_

Hux’s lips thinned. “Then yes, I will approve your request to chase the impossible.”

“Do it now, conditional on their failure.”

Hux let his eyes drop shut. He was far too tired to deal with this. “Will it get rid of you? Fine. Tell Arthan to send the request.”

“He has. It needs only your signature.” Ren snatched Hux’s datapad, called up the request, and pressed a stylus into Hux’s left hand. Hux scrawled something angular on the signature line and keyed the authorization. “I expected better penmanship from a bureaucrat.”

“I’m right-handed,” Hux snapped.

“Yes.” Ren paused. “And you’re not a mere bureaucrat, either. Your work today has been… unusually impressive.”

Startled into silence, Hux frowned. Before he could prod Ren to elaborate, though, a deep strange _crack_ rattled through his bones as Vellis clicked another fragment back into place: for all that he knew what that _was_ after her first warning, it still made him start and stiffen. Monitors chirped; the Emdee adjusted Hux’s IV, and Vellis cleared her throat. “Lord Ren, if you're quite finished...”

Without another word, Ren turned on his heel and billowed out the door.

Hux stared after him for a moment, brow furrowed. Had that been a _compliment?_ He didn’t think he’d seen Ren so magnanimous since… hm. Since the Dhun-Hr system, actually. That had been... unusual. Never mind that Hux had just subdued six worlds in a masterful strategic ploy, leaving their corrupt dictator desperate enough to try having him assassinated: Ren hadn’t actually been impressed until he burst belatedly into the officer’s lounge, just in time to see Hux put his boot knife through the hitman’s throat. After that, Ren had been almost suspiciously cooperative for nearly a week.

And now this. Maybe he just liked seeing Hux covered in blood.

He shook off the thought and went back to his reports.

\---


End file.
